


Time is Everything

by Chericola



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-07
Updated: 2018-12-07
Packaged: 2019-09-13 06:41:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16887546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chericola/pseuds/Chericola
Summary: After Terra is rescued, Aqua waits for him to wake up.





	Time is Everything

She stays by his bedside and watches him sleep, holding his hand as if it’s precious. His face is smoothed over, as if he’s shed years’ worth of hardship, though she can still see some lines between his brows and shadows beneath his eyes.

If he looks like that, god knows what state she’s in. She really doesn’t want to look into a mirror to find out. (She’s had quite enough of mirrors after her time in the Realm of Darkness.)

The battle to subdue Terra had been quick, but difficult. As she’d expected, Terra (or rather, Xehanort) had resisted her attempts to convince Terra to come with her peacefully, and had drawn his keyblade. She’d drawn hers in response, and the fight had begun. By the end of it, neither of them had been in good shape. Terra had been all but unconscious, with dark bruises and cuts littering his body. She herself can barely stand, let alone sit, her bruises hurt so much from when she’d been thrown hard to the ground by aeroga spells. Aerith wants her to rest and recover in bed, but she can’t make herself leave until she knows that Terra will be okay.

They’d told her, when she first brought him in, that there isn’t much they can do to help purify his heart of Xehanort’s darkness. He must win the battle himself—they can only restrain him, to stop the old corrupted master from escaping. So they placed him in one of the cells in the dungeons of the castle (Aqua made sure that they at least gave him a cot to sleep on), where the apprentices had imprisoned and tortured innocent people in the name of experimentation. 

She won’t let him endure this fight alone, Keyblade Master duties be damned. She’s tired of being dutiful. It’s what she done for most of her life, up until her fall into the Realm of Darkness, and she’s sick of it. For the first time, she chooses to focus on what she cares about most, and not push it aside for the sake of duty. What she wants right now is to be there for Terra, no matter if he can’t actually see or hear her.

And so she waits with him, her mind whirling with fear and hope. Soon, she thinks, it will all be over, and they can go return Ven’s heart to his body in Castle Oblivion together. Then the three of them will be a family again.

At some point, she must have fallen asleep, because she finds herself being shaken awake by Even. Without a word (and indeed, she’s too tired to say anything) she lifts her head from where it somehow found itself on the bit of pillow beside Terra’s head, and hauls herself to her feet, swaying. Even moves to steady her, but is stopped by the determined look on her face. He instead moves to open the door and lead her toward the laboratory, where Ansem and his apprentices wait.

Ienzo and Ansem are seated at the machines, typing and peering intently at a computer screen. They look up as she comes toward them.

‘Do you think this will work?’

Ienzo and Ansem look at each other, as if they’re debating what to tell her. Annoyance surges in her. She’s not a dainty flower—she can handle the truth, no matter how brutal it is. She is Master Aqua.

‘Please,’ she says quickly, before they can reply. ‘The full truth.’

‘We are hopeful,’ Ienzo tells her gravely. ‘But we can’t say what will happen.’

‘It will be painful,’ Ansem warns. ‘It may not be successful.’

‘But we have to try,’ Aqua says, shivering slightly. ‘I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t do everything I could to save Terra.’

Ven, too.

Ansem nods. To her surprise, she thinks she sees a glimmer of sympathy in his eyes. ‘We will, you may count on it.’

She remembers that Xehanort, still in Terra’s body, had become Ansem’s apprentice after their battle in Radiant Garden. And had later brutally betrayed him and everything he stood for.

She squeezes his hand in gratitude. ‘Thank you.’

It takes five days to purify Terra. Five agonizing days, for both of them.

She stays by his side through all of it, watching as he shudders and writhes. Sometimes he wakes up and his eyes are a flickering blue. He calls her name, and Ven’s, and her heart squeezes at the pain and longing in his voice.

At other times his eyes are a cruel, terrifying gold. He snarls at her in an inhuman voice, saying terrible things that she knows Terra would never say to her if he were in his right mind. This Terra would attack her if he could. She casts a reflega spell just in case and waits until he stops.

Mercifully, he never manages to injure her. She knows that he would never forgive himself if he harmed her, unknowingly or not.

Once, he appears lucid. His hand reaches for her, and she can feel the desperation in his fingers as they grasp at her wrist.

She looks into his eyes and hopes. ‘Terra. Are you okay now?’ 

‘N-no…’ He buries his head in her lap. ‘I’m scared. It… hurts…’

Her heart aches to see him like this, in this much pain. She has to do something for him, so she takes out her wayfinder—the one thing that had bolstered her courage while she was still trapped in the Realm of Darkness. Hopefully it will help Terra in his hour of need. 

‘Here,’ she says to him. ‘Remember this? It will lead you back to the light.’ She wraps his fingers around it and brings it to his chest. It glows faintly, pulsative to the rhythm of his heart.

He sighs; she can feel him relax underneath her fingertips. Good. Stay strong for me, Terra. For us. You have to win this, so the three of us can be together again. Please, Terra. 

She can’t tell if he can hear her, but she knows she sees his fingers move to grasp the wayfinder more tightly to his chest. 

On the fifth day, Aqua is woken up by the feel of a hand grasping at her shoulder. She immediately sits up, all remnants of sleep gone, ready to face the assailant. Then she remembers where she is and looks to one side. Sure enough, Terra is there, not just physically but mentally and spiritually. 

She looks deeply into his eyes. They don’t flicker anymore; there are no traces of gold left in them. Relief swells in her. The plan worked; Master Xehanort no longer holds any sway over Terra. She is so overjoyed that she could leap and dance, but instead she settles for gripping his hand and grinning wildly.

‘A…qua?’

She squeezes his hand in answer to his unspoken question. He relaxes imperceptibly, but there is still worry in his eyes.

‘Ven?’

‘He’s safe,’ she assures him. ‘We can go wake him up together as soon as you’re strong enough.’

He lets out a breath. ‘…good…’ His eyes flutter closed again. ‘You could’ve… woke him up… without me…’

She smiles and shakes her head. ‘I told Ven we’d both be there to wake him up. I couldn’t let him down.’ 

His chest shakes with laughter. ‘Yeah. You’re right. We can’t do that to Ven.’ 

He reaches out to her; without thinking she grabs his hand and guides it to her cheek, revelling in the feeling of his calloused palm against her skin. 

‘…love you,’ he murmurs. ‘Should’ve said it before… too scared.’

She swallows hard. ‘Of what?’

‘Hurting you.’

The idea that he would hurt her would’ve been laughable, once. But that was before his hands had choked her neck. She doesn’t mention that, of course. 

‘Why now?’

She knows, though. They’re going into battle in a little over a month. Who knows who will survive?

Terra gives a hoarse laugh that ends in a grimace. ‘Wasn’t sure I’d get another chance.’

She doesn’t know what to say. So she stays silent, long after he slips back into a fitful sleep, his hand held tightly in her own. Truthfully, she doesn’t yet know what she wants. Is she truly ready to enter into a relationship with Terra? Is it something she truly wants? She can’t say right now, but maybe, after all this is over, she’ll have an answer for him.

She only hopes that they’ll both be alive to hear it.


End file.
